Mobile terminal users increasingly rely on their mobile terminals for their communication and organizational needs. More recently, Push-to-Talk (PTT) technology over a cellular network, a Voice-Over IP (VoIP) network such as Session Initiated Protocol (SIP), or a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) has provided even more options for personal communications among groups of users. PTT provides users with instantaneous connections that bypass some of the more rigorous call establishment procedures associated with traditional mobile terminal calls. It is the convenience of instantaneous two-way connection that gives PTT its appeal.
Most PTT solutions allow users to receive PTT calls with the audio sent directly to speaker phone without user interaction. This type of PTT call is commonly labeled barge, auto answer, or auto accept. While convenient in most instances, it can be undesirable and/or disruptive in other instances such as meetings. The user will typically mute the sounds of the mobile terminal such that incoming events do not make an audible noise. This is referred to most commonly as “silent mode”.
In PTT over cellular (PoC) standards, call type settings such as auto or manual are maintained by a global contact list and another list termed the accept list. There may be significant overlap between the contact and accept list. The global contact list represents other PTT users that the user has identified for PTT communications by entering them into their contact list. The default answering mode is manual meaning that a PTT call invitation is issued by the calling party and appears on the called party's mobile terminal. The called party can then opt to accept or decline the invitation. The user can also create an accept list that may be a subset of the contact list as well as other PTT identifiers. On the accept list, the user maintains other PTT users and/or groups from whom the user will receive instant talk session requests. In addition to the accept list, there is another auto-answer mode flag. If the user sets his auto-answer mode flag on, sessions from the accept list utilize auto-answer mode. If the auto-answer mode is off, then manual answer mode is applied. There is also a reject list to allow a user to maintain a list of users from whom he does not wish to receive PTT calls. These are convenience features for many PTT users that wish to screen and de-screen certain PTT calls.
The contact and accept lists, however, are maintained not on the mobile terminal, but rather by the mobile infrastructure on a specific computer PTT server assigned the task. In order to receive PTT calls as auto answer, it is necessary for the user to add desired callers to their accept list. It is also required that a global setting be enabled. The global setting controls the function of the accept list. If the global setting is disabled, contacts on the accept list remain in “manual” answer mode which requires user interaction to answer a PTT call invitation.
There is currently no solution that allows a user to enter silent mode without having to remove contacts from the PTT server maintained accept list.
What is needed is a procedure that invokes silent mode for PTT on a mobile phone without causing reconfiguration of user-defined access lists that are maintained on the server.